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Band hazing victim awarded $1.8-million

TALLAHASSEE - A former Florida A&M University marching band member who was badly beaten during a 2001 hazing incident won a $1.8-million lawsuit verdict.

Marcus Parker, now 21, was beaten so badly with a paddle during a Marching 100 initiation that one of his kidneys temporarily shut down. He will likely need a kidney transplant, said his lawyer, David Frank.

After a two-day trial, jurors on Monday found five men liable for damages. The award will be collected by garnishing the defendants' wages and going after their assets, Frank said.

The five men - Eric Biggins, David Benoit, Anthony Gamble, Sean McGriff and Jimmy Simmons - did not attend the trial. Records show Parker, a trumpet player from Jacksonville, settled with FAMU a year ago for a confidential amount.

TALLAHASSEE - The death sentence a prison inmate received for murdering his cellmate was overturned Thursday by the Florida Supreme Court, which said the trial judge improperly refused to excuse a former death row prison guard from the jury.

Elton Ard was strangled in his cell at Columbia Correctional Institution in Lake City in July 2000.

Andrew Busby, 26, who was locked in the cell with Ard, was charged with his murder.

In Thursday's 4-3 ruling, Florida's high court vacated Busby's conviction because the trial judge refused to dismiss a potential juror who had worked as a death row guard and whose impartiality was suspect. That forced the defense to use a peremptory challenge to reject the juror. Later, the defense team ran out of peremptory challenges, and had to accept another juror it wanted to reject.